Labov’s sociolinguistic interview
Wordlists (minimal pairs)
Reading passage
Interview
Talk with friends
Limitations of SI
- speakers may be more formal in an interview setting
Vernacular
Style in which minimum attention is paid to speech
The Observer’s Paradox
Want to observe the speech that people use when they aren’t being observed
Advantage of questionnaires/self report
Cheshire & Edwards (1991) Survey of British Dialect Grammar
Self report useful in eliciting attitudes
Milroy & Gordon (2003) benefits of participant observation
- more ways of explaining finishings by looking beyond macro-social categories
Limitations of ethnography